


Kansas City Shuffle

by Goldmonger



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Season 1, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Rivalry, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:55:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23215135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldmonger/pseuds/Goldmonger
Summary: Sam and Dean get captured, then get into an argument about being captured. Hunting again might feel strange to Sam, but this side of it sure doesn't.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 38





	Kansas City Shuffle

**Author's Note:**

> * Adding [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xBad0Mi0x0) this to the Winchester playlist...

This, Sam thought, as he strained against the rope, was not how he’d pictured his day going.

“Stop that,” snapped Alma Sinclair, her prematurely greyed hair frizzing loose from its bun. Sam froze obediently as she returned to her grimoire, rubbing away sweat that trickled repeatedly from her hairline in a direct rivulet to her eyes. The pungent steam from the cauldron had created a distinctly humid atmosphere that wasn’t aiding her agitated state. Sam opened his mouth to suggest she crack a window, then determined that was an idea that really aligned better with Dean’s poor judgement. Speaking of which –

“How’s the head?” he murmured, and felt Dean shift slightly, back pressed against his own.

“Ass,” he grunted, which Sam interpreted to mean his blow to the temple wasn’t about to send him into a spate of seizures. Small victories.

“Any luck reaching your switchblade?” Sam cast a quick glance at Alma, who was absorbed by her book, squinting at the cramped print. “She took all of mine.”

“Well then, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that she nabbed mine too, genius,” retorted Dean, whose fingers were scrabbling at the bindings on their wrists. They were Arbor knots, tightening the more they pulled, but Dean was nothing if not persistent. And pig-headed. It was a wonder that vase had knocked him out at all.

“Dean, you’ll hurt yourself.”

“Shut up, I got it. Remember the night Dad locked us in the car and made us get out of a bunch of these things? It’s like riding a bike.”

“Yeah,” said Sam dryly, recalling hours of panicked tears as Dean calmly explained the spontaneous lesson, then took pity on him and untied him as well. He had refused to speak to their father for a week, despite Dean’s pleas. “Good times.”

“I can’t concentrate with all this yapping,” Alma barked from the kitchen island, where she had set aside the grimoire in order to dice up some gnarly ingredients: among others, amphibious appendages, clumps of bloody fur, and what seemed suspiciously akin to a human thumb, all lying pell-mell across the granite surface. “If this appraiser guy arrives with all his internal organs still intact, I’m feeding you,” she pointed the knife in her fist at Sam, “to you,” she said, jabbing it at Dean.

“Friggin’ witches,” Dean growled, as Sam loudly cleared his throat. Alma was a high-strung divorcee with a temper problem, according to her co-workers on the city council and two of her surviving boyfriends. He didn’t want to poke the bear, but rather stall it for a while.

“Killing federal agents isn’t going to end well for you, Alma. No matter how many of them you get.”

“They’re the lackeys of government parasites, not actual feds,” Alma drawled, filleting a gosling with practised ease and spilling its innards into a pink porcelain bowl. “And if they think they can just waltz up to my house with a piece of paper and claim my land is _theirs_ now, well, they’ve got another thing coming.” She hawked up a wad of phlegm and spat it into the bowl, then retrieved some herbs from her spice cupboard and started tearing them artlessly over it. “They’re not building a damn freeway through my house. Through the yard where I buried my parents, and my grandparents!”

Sam wrinkled his nose. “Uh –,”

“I like to have them close by,” she said defensively, then scowled. “Not that it’s anything to you. Hunter scum don’t take too kindly to practitioners of the necromantic arts, I suppose.”

“I just meant –,”

“Oh, enough with the gossip, Sam,” said Dean suddenly, brash and obtrusive. It was his frat guy voice, the one he adopted in crowded bars when he wanted to hustle. Sam recognised the play, but the annoyance flared anyway, like an old ache. “You girls done? Or am I going to be forced to listen to this all day?”

“Maybe you should shut your mouth,” Sam shot back, before Alma’s cheeks had the chance to flush a colour darker than puce, her entire five foot frame trembling with rage. “I’m trying to have a conversation here. All you manage to do is get us into trouble.”

“Me?” exclaimed Dean, pulling so that the rope dug into Sam’s diaphragm, making him cough. “ _I’m_ trying to solve this case while _you_ sit around trying to be all friendly –,”

“ _I_ want to understand this poor woman,” Sam yelled, jerking forwards, so that now Dean was the one suddenly winded. “Obviously she was screwed over by the absolute shambles that is our current administration, and someone has to pay!”

Alma had deflated slightly, her knife lowered to her waist, where she was unwittingly smearing bird blood on her paisley apron. Her expression cycled through bemusement, irritation, and incredulity before landing on a tepid version of her sizzling anger.

“And that should be us?” Dean started wriggling, bound legs flopping uselessly against the tiles, like a beached seal. “You’re saying we shouldn’t have sneaked into her house looking for evidence? We should have spoken to her instead? You’re an idiot!”

“If I’m an idiot then you’re the court jester, you – you ding dong,” Sam finished awkwardly, certain this thrashing would leave welts criss-crossing his torso the next day. Provided they made it that far.

He was struggling with the routine, truth be told, and not just the physical aspect. Tricking a mark was John’s specialty and Dean’s delight, and he knew it was just a high stakes game for them when racing from pit stop to pit stop, flitting between bars and morgues and witnesses, using a pool cue or a fake badge to get the advantage. Lying was his father and brother’s bread and butter, and had been his growing up, too. Now, a fresh college dropout with his saintly girlfriend’s ghost around every corner, he found returning to that mode of operation more difficult than he’d anticipated. It was like forcing himself into clothes that didn’t fit anymore.

“Why you little –,”

“Enough,” said Alma flatly. She recited a statement in Latin that was too quick to properly discern, and Dean’s insult was cut off, Sam’s lips simultaneously gluing themselves together.

They watched her advance, silent but for their shallow breathing and Dean’s boots scraping off the tiles. He was adjusting his position by pretending to writhe in impotent fury, but Sam still experienced twinges of fear in sympathy as he drew his own legs up, oscillating between genuine worry and certainty that it was all for show. Getting back into the flow of their double ( _triple_ ) act was plainly going to take longer than a few months back in the saddle, if it ever happened.

“You think I’m some kind of fool?” Alma hissed, crouching close enough to touch. Sam’s stomach flipped over as hot steam rolled around them like mist, bringing heady, medicinal scents that made him want to gag. Alma leered and their plans to trip her and pin her evaporated into the heat of the kitchen, into the foul cloud that surrounded them like water. Sam couldn’t twitch, couldn’t even relax the muscles gone taut in his neck as he craned it to keep her in focus. He felt Dean like a wall at his back and knew he was in the same boat – becalmed, in the eye of the storm.

Alma poked him in the cheek with the knife, which broke the skin and left streaks of her concoction. The most Sam could do was glare petulantly, so he did, just as Dean’s breathing started to pick up again. Sam could feel his honest fear now, thud-thud-thudding through his back and into Sam’s like they were both deaf, and communicating by rhythm.

“I can’t hear you,” she sang mockingly, transferring the knife to Dean’s chin. “What’s the matter boys? Cat got your tongue?”

Sam watched as a shadow leapt from above the upper cabinets down to the kitchen island, lightning fast. A lithe feline form, black as pitch, jumped to the floor and slunk towards them. Its eyes were gold, and narrowed, and a little too intelligent for Sam’s liking, its fangs already bloody beneath wet whiskers.

Thud-thud-thud, said Dean. _Fuck, fuck, fuck,_ Sam repeated.

“She’s a hungry girl. She doesn’t like men’s voices all that much.” Alma dragged the knife down to Dean’s collarbone. “They’re very aggressive, you know.”

The cat was too big to be a house cat, and Sam didn’t know many animals that could smile.

Sam inhaled sharply. Plan B it was.

He began keening, a wordless yell contained inside his sealed mouth. Dean’s heart pattered like rain against his spine, and Alma blinked, startled. She exchanged a look with the cat, which had come to a halt by her hip, then murmured some Latinate incantation. It was garbled – the reverse of what they’d heard earlier, Sam realised, as his jaw popped open. He gasped, a little uncouthly, judging by Alma’s raised eyebrow.

“Did you want to say something? An apology perhaps?”

“Actually,” he said, swallowing, “I just wanted to tell my brother to go fuck himself.”

Alma, Dean, and the cat were enraptured, but it was momentary. After shoving the cat to the side Alma scoffed, and stood up. “I’m not falling for this pathetic performance again.”

“Not a performance. My brother’s the hunter, not me. He dragged me out of college for this crap, can you believe that? Look,” he said, eyes flicking to his jeans pocket. “My student ID is in there and everything.” He felt the lump rise in his throat. “I’m not built for this, okay? I’m supposed to be a lawyer, not a goddamn ghostbuster.”

Alma folded her arms, knife protruding from one side like a ruffled, out of place feather on an irate bird. “Doesn’t matter. You both trespassed on my property. Thought you could just come on in, like those government-sent pricks.”

“It was a mistake for me to trust him this much,” Sam said. “I know that now.” He stared at her, urgent, pleading. “Just let me go? I don’t care about land disputes. Without my brother holding me back I can get on with my studies again. I can get back to my real life.”

Alma chortled nastily, then snarled something in gibberish at Dean, who went into a fit of spluttering.

“Any rejoinder to this, Spengler?”

Dean seemed to regain his composure with a gulp of air. “Well,” he said, “first of all, I’m Venkman in this scenario.”

Sam rolled his eyes.

“Secondly, my brother here has always been out for himself. Ditched us the first chance he got, right Sammy?”

Thud-thud-thud.

“Anything to get away from our train wreck of a family,” Sam replied, through gritted teeth. “I wanted to live in the real world, safe from all this insane –,” he noticed Alma’s proximity, “– uh, unusual stuff. I’m finally done with all of it. I want out.”

“Traitorous little runt,” said Dean quietly, like an admission. “You’d love it if I died, wouldn’t you? No more obligations to me or to Dad. Just Sam and whatever Sam wants.”

The ropes were constricting him more for some reason, like the knots were being tugged, yanked, crushing him against Dean’s oddly still back. He could feel the heat through the leather of his jacket, like he was being roasted alive in the throes of a fever and Sam was a block of ice.

“Damn straight,” he said, strangled. “This is your mess. Not mine.”

Alma was leaning forward, a grin splitting her face like a wound, too red at the edges. “Well I’ll be. And I thought I had problems with my family.” She winked at Sam, loomed closer. “You know my sister never shut the hell up? Always up my ass about something or other. Hex bag in the glove compartment and BOOM!”

The cat skittered back, ears flat as it darted towards the French doors, feverishly butting the glass with its head. They swung open, letting it disappear just as a draught of clean air blew in. Alma was oblivious.

“I got a familiar! And no more whinging,” she continued, lashes fluttering in blissful remembrance. “You should try revenge sometime. Witchcraft pays back better than lawyering, you know.” She cupped a hand around her mouth, and shuffled closer, like she was about to whisper a secret. “You can do _anything_.”

“I’ll bet,” said Sam, and without waiting for his nerve to fail he slammed his forehead into her nose.

Alma screeched from the cocktail of shock and pain, falling backwards into her island and overturning a black barstool with a clatter. Sam felt Dean push against him and mirrored the motion until they had hobbled to their feet, swaying dangerously above the prostrate woman.

“Turn,” shouted Dean, and Sam obeyed. He had a brief glimpse of Alma’s livid face, soaked with bubbling blood, a new gap in her front teeth, and then he was facing the wall.

“Brace yourself,” said Dean, and Sam immediately lowered his centre of gravity, widening the space between his knees though his feet were locked in place. He felt Dean lift his legs, the heft of his brother’s weight stealing his breath and intended curse as it settled on his back. He heard scrabbling, and an inchoate shriek that died in a crunch before it had the chance to morph into a spell. Dean’s weight returned to the floor, and Sam grunted.

“All that pie’s making you chubby,” he said, spinning them around so that he could see Dean’s handiwork. He regretted invoking the image of pie almost instantly.

“That’s all muscle,” panted Dean. “Put us on the floor again, see if you can get her knife.”

It took several minutes to slice through the layers of rope, Dean cutting Sam’s hands free, then his own, then moving onto the trickier ones looping them together. He passed Sam the knife so he could saw away at the final bindings around his ankles, then got to his knees and groaned as his circulation presumably started flowing normally again. He crawled over to Sam’s side, tilting his head up.

“Cut’s superficial, but that’s a goose egg if ever I’ve seen one,” he said, as Sam frowned experimentally. It stretched the bruised skin tight over the lump. “You feeling woozy?”

“No more than you must be,” said Sam. “You were out for a while, there.”

“I’m fine. Used to it.” Dean turned Sam’s head analytically, humming to himself, then gently wiped a smear of blood from the corner of Sam’s eye. It was mindless, automatic, without even a quip to roughen its edges. It left Sam feeling like hammered crap.

“Hey Dean?”

“Yeah?” He was fiddling with the knots at his feet.

“I didn’t mean that shit I said. I’m pretty sure you know, but. I want to be sure. That you know.”

The final bindings snapped free, and Dean stood unsteadily, holding out his hand. Sam clasped it, and was hauled up to his level.

“I do. And I didn’t mean it either, for what it’s worth.” He casually rolled his shoulders, popping the joints in his back. “I had you going there, huh?”

“No,” Sam lied, forcing himself not to fidget. It was a dead giveaway. Dean might boast that he knew all of Sam’s tells, but that just meant Sam knew them too.

“It was kind of badass, though,” said Dean, stepping over Alma, and wincing at the sight. “Running a con together like that, right? Like old times.”

Sam didn’t miss his earnest tone, or how he strategically averted his gaze. “Like riding a bike,” he said, earning him a tried-and-true Dean Winchester grin.

“You’re getting it, Sammy. Now.” He clapped his hands together. “Where’s our shit.”

“In the closet,” Sam said, gesticulating in its vague direction. His head was beginning to throb. “I saw her dump them, before she realised I was awake.”

“Atta boy.”

Sam was reapplying blades to his extremities and Dean was plugging his Colt back into his waistband when a series of musical notes pealed into the kitchen. The pair of them slowly turned towards the intercom speaker set beside the wall-mounted keypad, the former emitting a fuzz of static that was promptly followed by a timid male voice.

“Ms Sinclair? Ms Sinclair, it’s Agent Monahan. I’m here to appraise your property to further the development of Interstate-75.” A beat. “I’m following up on our written declaration?”

“Oh shit,” whispered Dean, fist to his mouth. “The timing of this motherf –,”

“Hurry up,” said Sam desperately, pulling Dean towards the French doors, which were still cracked open a few inches. They led into an expansive yard, which was bordered by a coppice of trees, and inflamed by the descent of autumn. It was a harshly plundered but serviceable forest that had allowed them to sneak towards Alma’s house during one of her workdays, or so they’d thought. They hadn’t accounted for her bloodlust scrambling the schedule they’d memorised the night before, not to mention her general paranoia.

The Impala, mercifully, was only a scant mile away on foot, and Sam was looking forward to air conditioning and an ice pack. He had just stepped off the veranda, the adrenaline draining out of him, when Dean grabbed his sleeve.

“Did we leave any –,”

“ _Crap_.” Sam ran back to collect the knife that was decorated with their fingerprints, ignoring Dean’s snickers of triumph when he scurried back out. Dean immediately launched himself into the brilliant sunset, but Sam was sent stumbling as Alma’s cat wound between his legs and slipped back inside the house. He watched through the windows as it clambered over her body towards the mangled remains of her head, and started gnawing enthusiastically.

“Sam!” Dean was stage-whispering from the distant fence, arms raised in disbelief. “You fuckin’ ding-dong, come on!”

Sam sprinted over to him, hurtling over the immaculately painted picket slats and out of reach of Dean’s smack. “Dick.”

“What?” Dean joined him on the other side, bracken breaking under their feet. “It was a good comeback.”

“Better watch out. I’ve got worse in my arsenal.”

They headed into the thin forest, trading jibes that became more creative and subsequently more incoherent the closer they got to the car. Sam noted the way they fell into step with each other, shoulders brushing as they rehashed arguments as old and comfortable as a childhood blanket. It felt jarringly familiar, unbearably right, like teeing up a con that required the both of them to pull it off.

Sam had told himself he hadn’t chosen a path yet. That he rocked, precipitously, between two disparate fates, one filled with blood and warmth, the other secure, safe, lonely as death.

He did have a choice. It was just getting a little harder to believe.


End file.
